pcPuppyOS - with Citrix, Cisco VPN, OOffice/Oxygen, WPA2

[friedsonjm]

I would like to wait until the end of this week to make a new ISO, and give enough folk a chance to run it to really accumulate comments and suggestions.
jf

[BlueScreenBetty]

Thanks so much for this derivative! I am a linux newbie, and am quite pleased with Puppy. I can learn my way around, and if I really mess up-I can just delete my pup save file and start anew...all without risking my MBR while I learn. Fantastic! JUST the environment I was looking for to learn in.

I was having trouble installing Citrix using some of the tutorials I found on this site. Now I can stick with puppy, and run it more often as I can get to my work servers in the event I get paged.

The only thing I ran into was this:
I initially got an error once I logged into my employers Citrix Server stating "You have chosen to not trust this certificate". I went to the geotrust website, downloaded the appropriate cert and saved it to: /usr/lib/ICAClient/keystore/cacerts. I dumped my cookies and cache, relaunched Firefox and was able to logon in and use my apps successfully.

Thanks!

BlueScreenBetty

[BlueScreenBetty]

Ok-Here's one problem I ran into-I was unable to save my puppy session. I rebooted and tried three times...once to a USB drive, and twice to my hard drive. The message I got was "No suitable drives found".

I backed up my original 3.01 puppy file off my hard drive and moved it before booting from the new live PCpuppyos cd. My HDD was recently formatted, and there is no fragmentation according to windows. The original puppy worked fine on this machine, and I had no problem maintaining persistence to a pup save file on my HDD. I did a USB install, and will try that on the other device I was successfully running puppy on, and let you know how I make out. Let me know if you have any questions, or I can help you troubleshoot this further.

BTW-nice eye candy!

[friedsonjm]

Just to be clear... you are using the latest ISO, downloaded after 12:40 PM [that is, just after noon] EST, 6 Jan, and not an earlier version?
jf

[BlueScreenBetty]

Yes-I downloaded the latest ISO late this afternoon-around 4:30PM to 5:00PM EST. I also ran into a problem maintaining persistence from a usb install on my work assigned tablet. It asks me if I want to save, I choose to save, without encryption. However-it doesn't give me choice for the size of save file...it defaults to -1024KB (-1MB). My USB drive is 1 gig, and was also working normally and maintaining persistence on this device, with puppy 3.01.

[tlchost]

I would like to wait until the end of this week to make a new ISO, and give enough folk a chance to run it to really accumulate comments and suggestions.
jf

I run all my puppys as LiveCDs, and add a lot of scripts and stuff in /root. With 3.1 I have problems remastering the LiveCD...I assume its something about the remaster script. Can you give me some idea how to remaster your version?

Thanks

[Mstar]

I have the same problem as BlueScreenBetty with the pup-Save not working. Have tried it several times with the same result.

I also did a frugal install to a subdirectory and it refuses to boot using the exact code from the installer in Grub.

Screen goes black, hard drive clicks and whirrs, and nothing at all happens. Nothing that's visible anyway.

I also substituted the pcPuppyOS subdirectory for the one used for another 3.01 version in the Grub menu, changed nothing else, and it will not boot. Changed it back,and it works for the other version.

I have several other Puppy versions installed on the machine in subdirectories, and they all work, so Grub is not the problem.

Machine is a P4 3gig with a gig of memory. Hard drive is FAT 32. Video is onboard Intel, nothing fancy.

Yes, it's the final ISO, and the Checksum Pizzasgood posted is correct for the download.

Thanks for your help.

[Pizzasgood]

I have the same problem as BlueScreenBetty with the pup-Save not working. Have tried it several times with the same result.

Crap. I thought that was just my laptop being stupid again. I'll do some heavier testing tomorrow. I didn't get to test the install process as much as I liked during break because I was confined to my laptop. It doesn't have enough ram to load this monster to ram, which means to install it I have to wait for it to burn an actual disk to boot from, then to install from that disk, which is sloooow (otherwise it complains because it can't unmount the partition since it's running off that). Plus it has a small drive which made things more painful since I needed to delete things every day to make more room for my build tree...

I'm very glad to be back home with my desktop

Frugal installs were working the last time I tested them though. I'm not sure what might have broken. Probably something from the upgrade to a 3.01 base. I might have missed a detail somewhere.


Also, I'll need you to post the relevant section from Grub.

[Mstar]

Pizzasgood,

Here are two Grub entries:

This one is a direct copy of what the installer said, including the naming of the subdirectory.

# Boot PcPuppyOS
title Puppy Linux 301 frugal
rootnoverify (hd1,3)
kernel /puppy301/vmlinuz pmedia=idehd psubdir=puppy301
initrd /puppy301/initrd.gz
#end PcPuppyOS


This one is another attempt, I added the pdev1=hdb4 because it worked with another version. Other than being in a different subdirectory, it's the same.

#Linux bootable partition config begins
title Puppy 3.0 (Test)
rootnoverify (hd1,3)
kernel /pcpup/vmlinuz pdev1=hdb4 pmedia=idehd psubdir=pcpup
initrd /pcpup/initrd.gz
#Puppy 3.0 config ends


This one is from the same Menu.lst and it works. Just to show that Grub is working on this machine with subdirectories.

#Linux bootable partition config begins
title FireHydrant
rootnoverify (hd1,3)
kernel /fh300/vmlinuz pdev1=hdb4 pmedia=idehd psubdir=fh300
initrd /fh300/initrd.gz
#FireHydrant 3.0 config ends

I also tried running the CD on an old Compaq laptop. It loaded but gave me the same message about no suitable partitions for the pup_save file.

Oddly enough, when I loaded it again it found the pup_save from another 3.01 version that I had put on the drive and performed an upgrade. So, I then tried puppy pfix=ram, but it would not save the file afterward.

Same problem as my "big" machine. I did not try a frugal on the laptop.

Thanks for your help, and your work putting this together.

[Pizzasgood]

You said the drive was churning but the screen was blank, which tells me it was doing something, and your grub config looks bootable to me. The only problems I see are that you don't have a line to enable the framebuffer, but you also don't have a line to disable the bootsplash. So the bootsplash will try to start, but it can't run correctly without the framebuffer active. I was under the impression that it booted anyways but the screen was just messed up until X started, but I don't remember if I've tested that since adding animation to the bootsplash.

Anyways, it sounds to me like the bootsplash is either preventing you from seeing that it really is booting, or actually impairing the boot process. Try adding this to the kernel line of the grub entry:
vga=785
That will enable a framebuffer.

Alternately, add this:
pfix=nosplash
That disables the bootsplash so you can see the normal boot text to make sure things are working.


The install process should mention this at the framebuffer stage. In the event that you choose to not use a framebuffer, it should also default to including the pfix=nosplash option in the dialog I added that lets you add extra boot options. Did it do that?

[Mstar]

Thank you, Pizzasgood.

It was asking for information behind the blank screen. Booted fine with pfix=nosplash.

Yes, the option to turn off the bootsplash is in the menu.

It said it saved the pup_save file, but it is not in the subdirectory. It also did not indicate that it was being loaded when I rebooted. Asked for Xorg or Xvesa, etc. again.

But, it kept the network settings between boots. So, I don't know if it's finding the pup_save or not. I'll do a little more experimenting and report back.

Thanks again.

[Mstar]

Pizzasgood,

Sorry to report that pup_save is not being created, even though the procedure completes. I do not, however, see the typical "files being written" message after I hit Enter.

Tried it twice now, with no success.

Also checked the root of the drive, although it says it's putting the pup_save in the subdirectory. No new files there either.

Changes are not being saved, it's starting from scratch each time.

All else appears to be working, including the network connection.

Sorry to be such a bother.

Thanks for the help.

[Pizzasgood]

Sorry to be such a bother.

Quite the opposite! We need to find the bugs!

We don't have lab the first week of school, so I'm done for the day already. Testing will commence as soon as I get a fresh disk burned. (Would have started a while ago, but I visited the dev-blog first, then decided to implement the monitor probing fix that Barry posted).

[Mstar]

Pizzasgood,

Copied a pup_save from a 3.00 installation to the subdirectory and started pcpuppy with pfix=purge. It took forever, but it now recognizes the pup_save.

Odd thing is that is did the version upgrade all over again when I rebooted it without the purge command. Third time was the charm, though as it started right up and appears to be saving changes. Of course, I've lost all my icons, but that's not a big deal.

Also, FWIW, when it asked about saving each of the times it did not work,it did not present the opportunity to re-name the file, select the size, or let one choose where it is to be created. Seems the process is being short circuited somewhere. It did choose to install in the correct subdirectory, and the file size was -1024k (the minus sign was there each time). Just never wrote anything anywhere I could find.

Hope this helps. Thanks again.

[Pizzasgood]

Found the problem. It was the auto-mounting script, which had a line to unmount all the partitions when you reboot. When I added that line, I thought that file systems not being unmounted was causing a bug we were experiencing. I wasn't thinking straight though because the shutdown scripts automatically take care of any file systems that are still mounted. We eventually found and fixed the real source of the bug, but I forgot that I'd added that line to the auto-mount script so never removed it.

To fix it, either use the toggle menu to disable the automounting, or just edit the /etc/init.d/mount_all script and comment out the line near the top that starts with "umount".

I also enabled the firewall by default, corrected a bug causing the desktop icons to change, and corrected the install script so that it will give you correct directions when telling you how to configure grub.


EDIT: But, now I see that encrypted save-files aren't working. It skips the part where it asks for your (encryption) password.

EDIT2: Same issue as this guy's:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 440#162643

EDIT3: Same thing happens with a plain vanilla Puppy 3.01, so it's not an error I induced. I might look at it harder Thursday if I don't have anything more important to do. I'm trying to get caught up on all my old unfulfilled promises before school gets crazy again.

[BlueScreenBetty]

Thanks!

Toggling the automount worked. I now have pcPuppyOS running from USB and maintaining persistence.

Fantastic! I appreciate having this puppy version.I know when I'm on call I can keep puppy running because I can now get into Citrix.

Betty

[KF6SNJ]

I will be testing this in the next hour. I will let you know....

[Mstar]

It's me again.

Machine is a Compaq Presario 1925 notebook with a Belkin FSD7010 PCMCIA wireless adapter plugged in.

Puppy 3.01 finds it and works. PcpuppyOS does not. I've loaded the driver and written and saved the login script in the Wizard (it's a WEP encrypted network) but nothing happens when I test it. Says no network was found, etc.

The card is visible using cardctl, and also using the built-in Puppy interface finding utility.

What shows up on the taskbar is an icon for wiifi0, but the interface is ath0, and is shown properly in the wizard but not on the taskbar. When using 3.01 it get two taskbar icons, one of which is the ath0.

I saw that Pizzasgood had moved some of the PCMCIA handling to a different script in PcpuppyOS. Maybe something got left out, or garbled in the process. I don't know enough to go any deeper on my own.

Thanks, this is a nice package.

[friedsonjm]

Mstar, when you say you've loaded the package, are you using a native Linux driver, or an ndiswrapper-loaded windows one? I'm asking because I have a similar situation on my machine, which I've overcome using ndiswrapper. Oh, I use WPA2, I'm not comfortable with WEP's level of security...
regards,
John

[Pizzasgood]

I saw that Pizzasgood had moved some of the PCMCIA handling to a different script in PcpuppyOS.

Well, that's news to me! All I changed was some WPA related stuff (initially I did the fix I posted, but I wound up resorting to abandoning the wpa_cli method for editing wpa_supplicant.conf in favor of sed, which finally got friedsonjm's card working. I also corrected the password length bug).

The only thing I can think of is that I included the contents of zdrv_301.sfs in the pup_xxx.sfs file because at one point it sounded like the .sfs version wasn't being used correctly. Turned out to be a different problem but I neglected to go back and remove the built-in package. I'll disable that for the next ISO; maybe it will help. (The zdrv_301.sfs file itself was still kept in order to keep the initrd.gz file small-ish). This doesn't seem like it should make a difference though.

Are you sure it was the plain Puppy 3.01 (what pcPuppyOS was based on), or the regression version (which uses an older kernel)? Run uname -r in a commandline. That will tell you your kernel. If it's 2.6.21.7, then you got the standard version.

Not to be insulting or anything, but are you certain that you did the same process to set it up in pcPuppyOS as Puppy 3.01? Try the same process in a Puppy 3.01 using puppy pfix=ram just to make sure you aren't remembering anything wrong.

Do you know how to set it up on the commandline? Trying that on both and comparing the results might help to determine where the problem is (i.e. the wizard, the utilities, the modules, etc.)
If you don't, here's a how-to:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=22469

If the problem is the zdrv thing, it will probably rear its head at the very beginning, when you're loading the modules for the card.



Sorry if this post is a little scattered. I prefer posting as many ideas as I can think of at once to save time, rather than working through them all over days.





In other news, I was busy today. I updated Thunderbird, added Enigmail, and modified the xwin script to use a dialog for the times when there's a bad shutdown (similar to Puppy 2.15CE and Pizzapup 3.x, but this version has a time-out so you don't have to be around to hit enter). I also started adding dmcrypt. Right now it's usable, but not an option for the pup_save.2fs file. I'll hopefully get to that before Sunday when I plan to upload a new ISO.

I haven't found out how to fix the other encryptions yet, and I don't know if it will affect dmcrypt too (at the initrd.gz level that is, it works fine when everything's running). If dmcrypt is fine but I can't get the others running, I might just comment them out and leave dmcrypt as the only option, at least until a solution is found.